Model for Auditing Search Engine Optimization for E-business

Transcription

1 LiU-ITN-TEK-G--10/020--SE Model for Auditing Search Engine Optimization for E-business Department of Science and Technology Linköping University SE Norrköping, Sweden Institutionen för teknik och naturvetenskap Linköpings Universitet Norrköping

2 LiU-ITN-TEK-G--10/020--SE Model for Auditing Search Engine Optimization for E-business Examensarbete utfört i datakommunikation vid Tekniska Högskolan vid Linköpings universitet Handledare Dag Haugum Handledare Gary Macritchie Examinator Dag Haugum Norrköping

3 Upphovsrätt Detta dokument hålls tillgängligt på Internet eller dess framtida ersättare under en längre tid från publiceringsdatum under förutsättning att inga extraordinära omständigheter uppstår. Tillgång till dokumentet innebär tillstånd för var och en att läsa, ladda ner, skriva ut enstaka kopior för enskilt bruk och att använda det oförändrat för ickekommersiell forskning och för undervisning. Överföring av upphovsrätten vid en senare tidpunkt kan inte upphäva detta tillstånd. All annan användning av dokumentet kräver upphovsmannens medgivande. För att garantera äktheten, säkerheten och tillgängligheten finns det lösningar av teknisk och administrativ art. Upphovsmannens ideella rätt innefattar rätt att bli nämnd som upphovsman i den omfattning som god sed kräver vid användning av dokumentet på ovan beskrivna sätt samt skydd mot att dokumentet ändras eller presenteras i sådan form eller i sådant sammanhang som är kränkande för upphovsmannens litterära eller konstnärliga anseende eller egenart. För ytterligare information om Linköping University Electronic Press se förlagets hemsida Copyright The publishers will keep this document online on the Internet - or its possible replacement - for a considerable time from the date of publication barring exceptional circumstances. The online availability of the document implies a permanent permission for anyone to read, to download, to print out single copies for your own use and to use it unchanged for any non-commercial research and educational purpose. Subsequent transfers of copyright cannot revoke this permission. All other uses of the document are conditional on the consent of the copyright owner. The publisher has taken technical and administrative measures to assure authenticity, security and accessibility. According to intellectual property law the author has the right to be mentioned when his/her work is accessed as described above and to be protected against infringement. For additional information about the Linköping University Electronic Press and its procedures for publication and for assurance of document integrity, please refer to its WWW home page:

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5 Abstract E-commerce combines web technology with business economics. As of the last 10 years, online visibility for such online enterprises now heavily rely on the relationship between the own online sales platform and Search Engines for improved traffic consisting of presumable customers with the intent of acquiring products or services related to the customers needs. In 2008 an Internet behavioural analysis showed that over 90% percent of Swedish internet users make use of search engines at least once a week, stating that online visibility through the use of search engines now is a crucial business marketing aspect. To improve the relationship between online e-commercial platforms and search engines several applications exists within the technical field of Online Marketing one being Search Engine Optimization (SEO), As a subset of Online Marketing, SEO consists mainly of three subareas; Organic Search Engine Optimization (Organic SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Social Media Optimization (SMO). The true nature of how Search Engines operate to crawl and index web contents are hidden behind business secrets owned by the individual search engines operating online, leaving SEO auditors and operators to systematically try-and-error test for optimal settings. The first part of this thesis unfolds the SEO theory obtained from online sources, acclaimed literature and articles to discover settings in which SEO auditors and operator may use as tools to improve online visibility and accessibility on live websites to search engines. The second part sets on forming a theory driven work model (called the PS Model ) to systematically work with SEO; structure for implementations and ways to measure the improvements. Third part of the thesis evaluates the PS model using a case study where the model is implemented upon. The case study uses a website (in this thesis referred to as BMG ) owned by a company active in the biotechnological research and development field situated in Sweden (in this thesis referred to as BSG ), which at the start of January 2010 was in need of SEO improvements as the relationship between the search engine Google had somewhat stagnated leaving several vital documents outside of Google s indexing and the relevancy between performed search quires and site-wide keywords had been lowered. The focus of this thesis reside on bringing forth a work model taking in essential parts of SEO (Organic SEO, SEM and SMO), implementing it on the BMG platform to improve the website s online visibility and accessibility to search engines (mainly focusing on Google), thus enhancing and solving the stagnated situation identified as such in January 2010 by the BMG site-owners consequently validating the PS Model. In May 2010 it was shown that the PS model did improve site-wide indexing at Google and search queries containing the main set of keywords in use of BMG was improved in terms of relevancy (higher placing on search result pages).

6 Acknowledgements This bachelor s thesis has been carried out at the Department of Science and Technology within the University of Linköping. The examiner Dag Haugum and BSG owner Dr Ronnie M Andersson have my deepest thanks for making this thesis possible, for the support throughout the investigating, and for the many contributions during discussions. Special thanks goes to Gary MacRitchie (BSG) for presenting the possibility to create and evaluate this work model for auditing present SEO on live e-business on their main selling platform; BMG. Last but not least, thanks to all friends and family for the support throughout the making of this thesis. Norrköping, May 2010

7 Terminology Apache Blog BMG BSG CMS Cookie-cutter technology CR Crawler / Spider CSS E-business Feed Holistic HTML HTTP IIS IP address JavaScript Keyword(s) PPC PS Model ROI RSS SEM SEO SERP SMO Social Media SPAM Web Server Platform provided by the Apache Software Foundation Type of website focused on presenting regular entries of information on a more personal level. E-commercial website owned by BSG. Company mainly active in the biotechnological research and development field. Situated in Sweden and owned by Dr. Ronnie M. Andersson. Content Management System Adopting technology residing on uniformity, pragmatically or common practice with the lack of originality Conversion Rate Application using a set of algorithms to scan a vast selection of information using links for transitional travel Cascading Style Sheets (Style sheet language used to present markup language such as HTML) Business being conducted online (on the Internet) A way to distribute content on the Internet using pull & push technology that can be subscribed to. Whole / wide, as in using a wide perspective while investigating an area of interest HyperText Markup Language HyperText Transfer Protocol Web Server Platform provided by Microsoft Computer or computers address on a network Script Language Highlighted set of words within a website to match search queries from search engines. Pay Per Click The SEO auditing model for e-business compiled by the thesis author: Return on Investment Really Simple Syndication, family of web feed Search Engine Marketing Search Engine Optimization Search Engine Result Page the page that provides search results after a conducted search query Social Media Optimization Community based forums online where individuals meet for networking and personal communication Undesired electronically bulk messages/information

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9 Table of Content 1 INTRODUCTION Background Purpose Delimitation Scope Method Structure of thesis THEORY OVERVIEW Online accessibility and visibility Search Engine Accessibility for efficient crawling Content inclusions by search engines using data-mining algorithms Determining web page value through PageRank Organic Search Engine Optimization (Organic SEO) On-Page Optimization On-Site Optimization By-Externals Optimization Pitfalls hindering Search Engine accessibility Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Content development Keyword Research Social Media Optimization (SMO) Social Bookmarking Blogs Social Media Presence Business Concept Search Engine Optimization Measurement Tools Google Webmaster Tools Google Analytics SeoQuake SEO AWStats Google Search Engine... 19

10 3 MODEL THEORY Assessment phase In-House Competence Current State Analysis Business Concept Log Data Analysis Link Analysis Internal Keyword Analysis Visitor Analysis Business Intelligence Use of SEO Software Preparation phase Factor Analysis Pitfall Analysis Technical Specification Implementation phase Evaluation phase Continuity phase CASE STUDY: BMG Background Assessment phase on the BMG website In-House Competence Current State Analysis Business Concept Log Data Analysis Link Analysis Internal Keyword Analysis Visitor Analysis Business Intelligence Use of SEO Software Preparation phase on the BMG website Factor Analysis Pitfall Analysis Technical Specification Activities for SEO implementation Implementation phase on the BMG website BMG Blog Social Bookmarking Template (Code) Optimization SiteMap Ping Category Navigation Change Activities chart for SEO implementation Evaluation phase on the BMG website Continuity phase on the BMG website... 56

11 5 RESULTS Assessment phase Preparation phase Implementation phase Evaluation phase Continuity phase DISCUSSION PS model Case Study: BMG CONCLUSION PS Model Future work and recommendations REFERENCES Online sources Printed Sources APPENDIX Source code of BMG in January Source code of BMG after SEO implementation done in April Google Webmaster Tools Status Presentation May

12 Table list Table 1 Scope Outline... 3 Table 2 Explaining PageRank values Table 3 On-Page Optimization Factors... 9 Table 4 On-Site Optimization Factors Table 5 By-Externals Optimization Factors Table 6 Outline of Search Engine Optimization Pitfalls Table 7 Google Search Engine Advanced Search Operators Table 8 In-House Competence Checkpoints Table 9 Current State Analysis Checkpoints Table 10 Business Concept Checkpoints Table 11 Log Data Analysis Checkpoints Table 12 Link Analysis Checkpoints Table 13 Internal Keyword Analysis Checkpoints Table 14 Visitor Analysis Checkpoints Table 15 Business Intelligence Checkpoints Table 16 Use of SEO Software Checkpoint Table 17 Translating SEOmoz scale to PS Model Table 18 Factor Analysis factor priority, implementation status and notes Table 19 Pitfall Analysis Outline Table 20 Technical Specification Outline Table 21 SEO Activity Description Table 22 Structure for evaluating SEO Activities Table 23 Routines chart Table 24 Case Study BMG: In-House Competence Table 25 Case Study BMG: Current State Analysis Table 26 Case Study BMG: Log Data Analysis Table 27 Case Study BMG: Visitor Analysis Table 28 Case Study BMG: Business Intelligence Table 29 Case Study BMG: Use of SEO Software Table 30 Case Study BMG: Factor Analysis Table 31 Case Study BMG: Pitfall Analysis Table 32 Case Study BMG: Technical Specification Table 33 Case Study BMG: Suggested SEO improvements (and areas of effect) Table 34 Case Study BMG: BMG Blog Table 35 Case Study BMG: Social Bookmarking Table 36 Case Study BMG: Template (Code) Optimization Table 37 Case Study BMG: SiteMap Ping Table 38 Case Study BMG: Category Navigation Change Table 39 Case Study BMG: Implementation chart for SEO activities Table 40 Case Study BMG: Evaluation Phase: Data collection Table 41 Case Study BMG: Evaluation Phase: SERP Values vs. Goals Table 42 Case Study BMG: Evaluation Phase: Indexing rate Table 43 Case Study BMG: Routines Chart Table 44 Model vs. Empirical data (Assessment Phase) Table 45 Model vs. Empirical data (Preparation Phase) Table 46 Model vs. Empirical data (Implementation Phase) Table 47 Final outline for the PS model... 69

13 1 Introduction The development and evaluation of a work model for website administrators (also referred to as auditors and operators ) working with Search Engine Optimization outlines the main objective of this bachelor s thesis. Theory and empirical studies forms the main contents for the model development. The revilement of its use and accuracy in result bringing comes from an evaluation assessment done with a case study: a live e-commercial website depending on Internet exposure for revenue. The thesis also describes broad literature and online based theory as well as commonly used technologies for search engine optimization focusing on essential parts needed for E-business. 1

14 1.1 Background According to acclaimed web sources such as wikipedia, electronic commerce (E-business) is business conducted where customers and retailers met virtually to carry out economical transactions of products or services. As the global expansion of network connected information technology continues new market spaces are formed for new and established businesses that has knows no boundaries except the span of all Internet connected computers all over the planet. As such, the number of firms and professional individuals conducting search Engine Optimization (SEO) for E-business on consulting basis grows for each passing year. The diversified inflow of web visitors to a e-commercial website outline what is commonly called as traffic and that traffic can be either be quality or quantity based in terms of potential customers. If the ratio of potential customers is higher than the amount of casual visitors the possibility of revenue is higher. Again, according to the Easyfairs e-commercial focused seminars, that means that not all traffic is beneficial for the e-business, only the part that brings in potential customers. Based on these arguments websites have to be better on attracting the right kind of traffic to potentially gain revenue. This is where Internet marketing comes in to picture, an area which can be divided into three major areas; Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and Social Media Optimization (SMO). According to the author behind SEO Warrior, performing search engine optimization is a time consuming effort as it requires marketing and information technological understanding as well as experience in web programming. According to Google, outsourcing SEO to hired professionals can be both provide advantages or disadvantages depending on how the optimizing work is performed. Agencies with acknowledged SEO competence and experience provide useful services for e-commercial website owners, such as; auditing content and site structure, technical advice on website development in terms of hosting, redirects etc, content and keyword research, management of e-commercial campaigns, SEO training, and expertise in specific markets, regions and geographies. The need of effective SEO derives from the popularity of using search engines for simple and advanced search queries performed by individuals and corporations. In 2008 an Internet behavioural analysis was conducted by the Swedish SEO company iprospect. As a result of that study a press release was later on published the same year stating that in Sweden amongst many search engine using nations, over 90% percent of Swedish internet users use a search engine at least once a week. In terms of Internet marketing this statement becomes highly significant as search engines have over the last years improved their usefulness as an important channel for visitor traffic. In simple terms: web visitors are potential customers, and for online as well as offline commerce - every customer means revenue. 2

15 1.2 Purpose The purpose of this report is to investigate techniques to revise (audit) already implemented search engine optimization (SEO) intended for E-commercial websites using a holistic perspective introducing business development theory with commonly and acknowledged SEO aspects. After identifying these techniques, this report wants to prove the possibility to construct a SEO work model based on these techniques on a broad holistic span. 1.3 Delimitation The objective of this report is examine the possibility to form and evaluate a practical work model for diagnostically revising implemented Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for e-business through the implementation of the work model on a live e-commercial website in need of SEO improvements; BMG from BSG. The theory driven work model (henceforward called PS Model ) will consist of essential partials from four areas affecting online accessibility and visibility (indexing and ranking) for E-commercial websites; (Organic) Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Optimization / Social Media Marketing, and Business Development. 1.4 Scope According to wikipedia - Search Engine Optimization is a subset of Internet Marketing. This investigation will be limited to probe SEO for organic search results, SEM for keyword and content and SMO for web 2.0 accessibility/ business relations with the fundamentals of business development theory. The reason for the concluding limitations is that Internet Marketing is it own economical science and that the model development will only focus mainly on technical achievements that yields improvements by keyword and content holding incubating framework optimization. Other areas will only be used and mentioned briefly. Search Engine Optimization (a subset to Internet Marketing) Business Theory Thesis Scope Organic SEO SEM SMO Business Concept Main focus Framework Optimization Mentioned and used for model development Keyword Research Content Optimization Social Integration Blogging Business Idea Market Plan Organization Product Intention Table 1 Scope Outline 1.5 Method This report consists of both inductive and deductive studies using recognized literature and field work (case study) providing empirical data. Model development and test cases where to be planned during the outline construction of the work model. 3

16 1.6 Structure of thesis The thesis report starts with an introduction chapter explaining the current state of the relationship between Search Engines and E-commerce. Second chapter provides a Theory Overview to be used in constructing the theory driven work model for Auditing Search Engine Optimization for E-business. Third chapter provides the mentioned theory to construct the work model. Fourth chapter is the Case Study where the work model is implemented on the BMG website. Fifth chapter explains the results from the work model implementation. Sixth chapter details the conclusion from the results provided and obtained by the case study and evaluates the use of the work model. Seventh chapter is the discussion which highlights the overall results and problems during the creation of the work model and its application on the BMG web platform. Also in the seventh and last chapter the author presents the final revised work model (the PS model) for Auditing Search Engine Optimization for E-business, and suggestions for further work with the model as well as what has been learned during the thesis work. 4

17 2 Theory Overview This thesis uses acknowledged (printed) literature and accredited information from online web sources to provide the essential span of theory needed to understand the concept of Search Engine Optimization. 2.1 Online accessibility and visibility E-commercial websites depend on the same commercial principle as offline business; product exposure. While different methods exist to expose products and services online, the most effective way to expose online commodities is by using search engines. The prime search engine, Google.com, favoured by the vast majority of private and cooperate web searchers uses advanced patented technologies to provide relevant search hits for given search phrases. Two factors contribute to an e-commercial website s discoverability; grade of indexing and acquired ranking Search Engine Accessibility for efficient crawling Google, as other search engines, uses robots (also called spiders) to crawl the Internet in search of high value content to be indexed and ranked in their databases. Processed content is then accessible to online searchers via the search engines web portals. The crawling process is link-oriented meaning that the search engine robots use links to navigate through a website. For both the site administrator and the robot this can be both beneficiary and hazardous. To travel through an entire website, checking every discovered link can on larger websites be a bandwidth stealing process. Also, some content not openly obtainable by web visitors can be crawled and indexed. For this reason the larger robots (from Google, Bing and Yahoo) uses a structured document called robots.txt which contains instructions on what content is allowed to be crawled and what content is to be left out from crawling. Also, most robots have been adjusted to be more bandwidth efficient on websites. 5

18 2.1.2 Content inclusions by search engines using data mining algorithms Indexing (adding and processing online data for searchable accessibility) from robots crawling the Internet are by most search engines a patented technology. The success behind Google can be derived from the efficient use of data mining algorithms, which all started from the paper called The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, a paper formed by the Google inventors Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page. In that paper Brin and Page states that: search engines index tens to hundreds of millions of web pages involving a comparable number of distinct terms. They answer tens of millions of queries every day. Although the paper was first constructed in the late 90 s last century search engines still have the same work load on them and have to scale up their computing resources to match the ever growing of number of search queries being done each second globally with lightning fast responses. From the same paper, the method of acquiring a webpage through crawling and then being accessible to web searches from within the Google architecture is detailed in this figure: Figure 1 High Level Google Architecture (source: "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine") As the paper continues, the URL Server stores the gathering information of links to be fetched by the search engines crawlers and then sends the information to initiate the crawl process. The found content (web pages) is then sent to the Store Server. The main function of the Store Server is to compress and store the found content into a Repository. To further sort and structure the web pages, every page are designated an associated ID number called a docid (which is assigned whenever a new URL is discovered from a web page). Indexing is performed two separate functions called the indexer and the sorter. The indexer reads the Repository and parses the data after un-compressing it. A list of word hits is constructed from the web page after being converted down to a set of word occurrences. Along with the word hits additional computed information is stored such as the words position in document, the on-page semantic use of highlighting text (like font-size and capitalization). Every hit is then distributed into a set of barrels creating as the paper stats sorted forward index. Also, the Indexer parses out links in every web page and stores important information about them in an anchors file. Further down the process the paper describes the conclusion of all tasks summarized down to a usable lexicon which holds references to the indexed data stored within the search engines databases. The same lexicon is then used by the search application on a web server together with PageRank calculations to provide answers to search queries. 6

19 2.1.3 Determining web page value through PageRank PageRank (PR) brings order to web according to the Google authors behind The Anatomy of a Search Engine. The patented algorithm to calculate PR consists mainly about determining the quantity and quality of external citations pointing to a specific web site and inbound links - or as the authors express it - objective measure of its (web page) citation importance that corresponds well with people s subjective idea of importance. The math behind PR is defined by the following expression: PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) PR(Tn)/C(Tn)) PR(A) is the given PageRank of a web page called A, C(A) is defined as the number of outbound links leaving web page A, and the crucial parameter d is damping factor spanning the interval of 0 to 1. The authors behind PR calculations use the damping factor of T1 to Tn are pages that point to A. The sum of all PR determined web pages will be 1 as the PR form a probability span. A web page with a high value PR receives better search ranking than a web page with low value PR emphasise the importance of site-wide citations and the number of quality inbound links to a specific web page. Using a search engine querying what the actual PR values practically mean, the following could be derived (as Google does not officially clarify what the actual PR values denote): PageRank Meaning 0 Called PR0 and is usually a sign for websites that used to have a higher PR being penalized by Google that uses questionable search engine optimization technologies. Having PR0 practically means being mostly always at the far back for searches relevant for that website. 10 Besides Google, only software developer Adobe dominates the top 10 of websites/pages receiving the PageRank of 10 (as of 2010). Table 2 Explaining PageRank values. However, several talks on SEO forums concerning the link between PageRank and SERP placing has been discussed and in some cases websites with PR1 could show up on the top 10 in SERPs for given site tied keywords. 7

20 2.2 Organic Search Engine Optimization (Organic SEO) The author behind the book SEO warrior explains that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) by itself is the iterative process of generating an inflow of useful traffic (quality and volume) to a website with use of constructed and targeted sets of keywords(s) via organic search results from search engines. Proving SEO effectiveness is done by looking into what order the search engine optimized site is presented on the search engines result page (SERP) for given keyword(s). The higher up a website reaches on the SERP, the higher likelihood according to the algorithmic calculations done by the search engine that the website corresponds to the given search phrase presented by the search inquirer, i.e. visitor). Search engine optimization can be performed to target different kinds of specific searches; image search, local search and vertical searches that are can be more industry-specific. Conducting SEO takes place on different technical and content driven layers; On-Page, On-Site and By-Externals, and consists of implementing measures (factors) to compensate flaws that could hinder search engine spiders work of crawling and indexing. In short, Organic SEO focuses on the optimizing the framework with the aim of placing relevant content as whole and especially keywords in the most effective and exposing way. 8

21 2.2.1 On Page Optimization To perform on-page optimizations means looking into the factors contributing to user and search engine friendliness in terms of semantic coding and content presentation. According to the web survey done by SEOMOZ in 2009, several key elements with different likelihoods to more or less affect the variables taken into account when Google and other search engines calculate search result relevancy. Through the web survey several SEO effecting factors were identified that can be summarized to: Factor Description / Area of Implementation Page - Code/Text ratio Counting ratio of code divided by text. Example: 45KB source code / 10KB content text = 4.5, the ratio should be near or less than 1 for best presentation (relevancy) to search engines Breadcrumb Trail Explained trail of site navigation from point of origin to present page. Example: Home >> Sector Page >> Category Page >> Product Page Meta Distribution Meta Distribution explains to the search engine the localization of contents Meta Robots Meta Robots tag describes for the search engine how to handle the page Separation of visual representation elements Separating HTML from CSS and JavaScript (page size optimization for faster crawling) as crawlers prioritize content before code. Keyword - Initial spread Keyword or keywords within the first words on page Page - Freshness Having unique and substantial content on the webpage (utilizing the canonical tag to avoid duplicate content issues) Page - Update frequency Having a high update rate with fresh content Semantic Coding - <b>, <i> etc Highlighted text content placed within <b>, <i> etc tags Semantic Coding - <H1> H1 tag containing contents prime headline with keywords mentioned in it Semantic Coding - <H2> to <H6> Sub-headlines using H2 to H6 tags with keywords mentioned in it Semantic Coding - <p> Page text content placed in the <p> tags Semantic Coding - Meta Description Short description of page contents within the Meta Description tag Semantic Coding - Tile Using <title> to describe page contents with possible keywords Anchor text - Internal linking Anchor text with keywords describing links pointing inwards within website Content arranging with CSS layers Using CSS to arrange order of content within the web page code with layer technique for improved search engine crawl-ability Image "alt" attribute Image description readable for search engine Menus with CSS formatted lists Using CSS to transform lists to visual design elements (menus etc) to improve link-discovery and improved search engine crawl-ability Code Validation W3c validation of web page source code to eliminate crawling pitfalls for search engines Meta Keyword Business keywords (single or sets) placed within the Meta Keywords tag Social Bookmarking Giving web visitors the option to re-publish or mention a specific Keyword Research Deriving new useful keywords from existing keywords (or from the Business concept documentation) Offline contact information Offline contact information provides localization info for search engines and is valued positive by Google. Table 3 On-Page Optimization Factors 9

22 2.2.2 On Site Optimization Using a Content Management System to deploy e-commercial websites with inbuilt SEO support takes minimizes the programming work load for optimal search engine friendliness. For an example - an intelligent and useful hierarchy of content presentation is crucial for link optimization. Other contributing factors that are mostly server based such as administrated data from when and where the site was launched - and who in regards of registrant stands behind the website. On-Site optimization can be summarized and presented into the following listing of factors: 10

23 Factor Description / Area of Implementation Blog Having an active blog attracts attention from search engines and is a possible source of externally inbound links to the main e-commercial website as well as increase in traffic. Domain Ownership Evaluating history behind the owner for domain Domain Registration History The actual documented history of the domain (times renewed etc). Domain Registration Ownership How many times a domain has been changed - same owner etc. Change Domain Registration with Google Registering the domain name with Google Local Local Feeds in Google Blog Search Including RSS feeds to Google Blog Search Feeds in Google News Adding RSS feed to Google News Hosting Information Information about other domains hosted on the same server (c-block of IP addresses) HTML Sitemap Visual presentation of website tree structure for visitors Keyword - Page Folder URL Keyword or keywords in the page folder URL Keyword - Page Name URL Keyword or keywords in the page name URL Keyword - Root Domain Name Keyword or keywords in root domain name Keyword - Subdomain Name Keyword or keywords in subdomain to root domain Length of Domain Registration The actual length (registered time) of a registered domain where longer is better Location - Host IP Address Location of the Host IP Address of the Domain Offline contact information Physical address, telephone number etc to office (geotargeting factor) References in Librarian s Internet References of the Domain in the Librarian s Internet Index - Lii.org Index References in the Yahoo! Directory External mentioning of a domain name in Yahoo! Directory References of the Domain in External mentioning of a domain name in DMOZ.org DMOZ.org References of the Domain in External mentioning of a domain name in Wikipedia Wikipedia Robots.txt Robots.txt tells the search engine what to index and what to exclude (directories) Server - Architecture Usage of CMS for website presentation Server/Hosting Uptime Calculating the uptime for server (longer better) Sitemap in Footer Having a HTML representation of the sitemap linked from the footer improves individual page relevancy as through the sitemap link from every page within the website presenting a shorter path that leads to every page. Social bookmarking Social bookmarking function available for visitor URL rewrite Simpler and logical representation of URLs with keywords when possible Use of Feeds on the Domain Creating and publishing RSS feeds on the domain XML Sitemap XML representation of website tree structure for search engines XML Sitemap - separated Separating large Sitemap to smaller pieces limited to logical parts of website (like categories) Table 4 On-Site Optimization Factors 11

24 2.2.3 By Externals Optimization Outside the individual webpage and sets of web content there exists variables which cannot be directly controlled by the own website. Google s algorithm for Page Ranking and search results relevancy takes different external factors into account; a websites trust factor and trust distance from a so called trust seed ; a highly respectable website (both online and offline) such as nasa.gov etc. From the mentioned SEOMOZ several factors were identified that contribute to the external inflow of trustworthiness (factors that externally controlled): Factor Description / Area of Implementation Link - External Links from other sites Receiving links from external websites Link - External mentions from other Receiving mentions (in text) from external sites Table 5 By-Externals Optimization Factors 12

25 2.2.4 Pitfalls hindering Search Engine accessibility The authors behind SEO Warrior and SEO Search Engine Optimization Bible both mention that there exists snags best described as pitfalls hindering search engine optimization. Besides having factors that can be manipulated in such a way that they as whole contribute positive value (in terms of accessibility and relevancy for search engines), there exist so called pitfalls that can halter crawlers to effectively visit a website. For e-business driven websites this can be very damaging regarding revenue generation. Avoiding these pitfalls increases the likeliness of search engines having a best possible website visit. SEO Pitfalls Pitfall Description Solution Duplicate content According to Google, duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar deliberately duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic. Deceptive practices like this can result in a poor user experience, when a visitor sees substantially the same content repeated within a set of search results. In most cases having duplicate content isn t intentional, i.e. having printer-only version of web pages etc. By using the canonicalization tag the site administrator is able to present to search engines the preferred page for exposure/indexing. Page with overuse of keywords Disproportionate Repetition of the same Anchor Text in a High Percentage of External Links to the Site/Page Internal linking - (Unlogical and un-balanced structure for web content Cloaking The overuse of keywords on a single page ( keyword stuffing ). Multitude of inbound links having the same anchor text. According to forums discussing SEO, this can be regarded by search engines as bought links, which is in direct violation of the terms presented by for example Google for sites being allowed to be index as link buying is a deliberate way to manipulate PageRank calculations. Having a defective structure for internal linking, which could be web pages nonreachable from start page with links, and/or web pages having more inbound links internally than the essential web content. Web crawlers navigate by links. Without a logical path, the web crawler may unintentionally exclude web content from a website. Providing set of content based on user-agent (example: type of web browser). Malicious cloaking provides one quality based content for Google (for indexing and ranking) based on the user-agent provided by the Googlebot (crawler), but as other visitors land on the page they are presented with totally different 13 The content using the wanted keywords for exposure should be presented in a natural way as regular written text. Avoid buying links from other websites, especially websites considered to be spam-sites. Google advices that every web page within a website should be accessible from the start page (having a logical link path). E- business driven websites should have at least one inbound link to every product to guarantee the possibility to be discovered by web crawlers. Not all pages using different content based on user-agent are malicious, still, it s advised to avoid such coding for the sole purpose of adopting page contents for web crawlers.

26 Outbound links to spam sites SEO un-friendly CMS Frequent Server Downtime & Site Inaccessibility Content hidden in script, flash or other non crawlerfriendly coding Hiding Text with same/similar colored text/background and/or with CSS by Offsetting the Pixel display outside the visible page area. Excessive Number of Dynamic Parameters in the URL Excessive Links from Sites Hosted on the Same IP Address C-Block content. Having links pointing to reported spam sites Not having a CMS (Content Management System) that is by native SEO friendly. Server is not accessible for users (and search engines) Having content embedded in flash, scripts and other non crawler-friendly coding. Most crawlers have difficulties parsing information from flash videos. Using visible tricks to trick search engine and web visitors (keyword stuffing presented to search engine that is invisible to web visitors). Having bad formatted URLs with dynamic parameters embedded. An IP C-block is defined by addresses matching for example xxx, where xxx spans between 0 to 255 Table 6 Outline of Search Engine Optimization Pitfalls Some hackers that infiltrate and manipulate site coding can insert links pointing to spam sites for the purpose of giving the sites higher PR (pagerank). Strive to have a CMS that is easily SEO maintained Choose a service provider that can guarantee service up-time if not obtainable by oneself. Avoid having essential information (like site navigation) embedded in flash etc. Common trick in the late 1990 s to improve search engine ranking by invisible keyword stuffing. Does not work today and is punishable by the larger search engines. Using URL rewriting formats dynamics parameters into readable text (for cleaner URLs) Having inter-linking or just inbound links from sites on the same C-block could indicate malicious linkbuilding, as websites on the same C- block often belongs to the same owner. 14

27 2.3 Search Engine Marketing (SEM) The contents of SEO Search Engine Optimization Bible explains Search Engine Marketing (SEM) as the way to promote websites for increased visibility within search engine result pages (SERPs) using marketing techniques adopted for Internet. SEM extends SEO with the possibility to promotionally target wanted audience using search engines with paid advertisement; Pay-per-click (PPC) and paid placement. SEM methods offer measurability that focuses on economical key figures such as Return on Invest (ROI) and Conversion Rate (CR). SEM sees visitors as potential customers, and with ROI thinking, every resource put into SEM is valued after the Conversion Rate where visitors turn into customers. SEM intersects with SEO in regards of PPC as PPC gives direct feedback on how well sets of keyword(s) perform attracts visitors Content development Unique and fresh content has more value than duplicated and stale information according to Google, other search engines, literature and the vast majority of discussion boards on the Internet discussing professional SEO for e-commercial websites. The value diversity of the opposite content factors unique and duplicate is that wide that Google officially recognizes duplicate content (information repeatedly used throughout the own domain and across other websites) as (when maliciously and intentionally used to manipulate site Page Ranking) to be valid for extreme SEO punishment; being badly indexed and showing up low on result pages. Quoting Google support Webmaster Tools Help : As a result, the ranking of the site may suffer, or the site might be removed entirely from the Google index, in which case it will no longer appear in search results Keyword Research Keywords are both door openers for web visitors performing a search query on a search engine and also strategic content markers for distinguishing a business s own products and services from its competitors. From a search engine point-of-view: content with high relevancy for a chosen set of keywords will be prioritized above content with low relevancy for the same chosen keywords. Search engines point-ofview, it s all about providing high relevancy content to its search inquirers failing to do so means dropped popularity amongst other search engines. With this in mind, website owners need to see the whole picture when formulating a platform for e-commercial interaction on the Internet. Ending up on the first result page is crucial, being the in the top 3 is desirable, still, being the top 1 is the ultimate goal as searchers seldom click on hits past the top 3. If the searcher have a high trust factor for the chosen provider of search results (search engine) than the first click is where they ll go first. To perform a viable keyword research one has to first distinguish and summarize the whole e-enterprise into sets of few words as point-of-origin for keyword generation and additional permutations of discovered keywords. Using a holistic approach on finding ground material for identifying primer words, business development theory supplements data collecting with short and direct snippets of text used to build up documentation as business idea and business concept. Asking customers and brainstorming are also two other ways to find the initial keywords to worker further with. To start off a keyword research different point-of-origins (POO) can be used: 15

28 Business Concept POO Identify the sales pitch that describes the e-business From that sales pitch, tokenize useful keywords List the keywords in sets of one and more natural combinations Brainstorming POO Gather a group of co-workers and/or customers Conduct a open-minded brainstorming session where every business associated word/phrases is noted Tokenize found phrases and redundancy check found keywords Rank resulting keywords and list them According to SEO Search Engine Optimization Bible, having the POO defined, the next step is to construct if not already divided two categories in which the keywords can be ordered in; generic (broad) keywords and specific keywords. Most important, if not already filtered out, stop words like: A, An, The, But, When, Where etc. These words are filtered out by search engines, so using them as keywords or in keyword sets is a waste of dedicated resources. Next step in the keyword research is to construct (permutated generation) more relevant keywords out of the initially found. The goal is to find words corresponding with the initial core keywords and broaden them out with associative variations. Using the Google AdWords Tool it s possible to find variations in close proximity to the initially derived keywords that doesn t presently have lots of competition in terms of organic search result hits. When the niche is found (low competition keywords), the keyword research is completed. To evaluate keywords Google recommends using PPC (Pay per click) as it provide instant statistical data for a discrete cost determined by how long the evaluation period lasts (i.e. PPC campaign). 16

29 2.4 Social Media Optimization (SMO) SEO Search Engine Optimization Bible mentions that Social Media Optimization (SMO) improves traffic to a website by actively manipulating (in a positive manor) social media activity, driving quality visits to targeted website content. SMO consists of two method categories; utilizing of social bookmarking and social media contents imbedded to a website, and using promotional activities within social media forums to attract interest by presenting fresh web content to visitors Social Bookmarking Website owners utilizing web 2.0 marketing strategies find that social bookmarking is a great method to create more inbound external links from web visitors that wants to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of content found on the Internet by creating bookmarks that references site content for others. Today Internet users are able to connect using personal accounts at own blogs and/or at Facebook etc. to create a reference of interest between the own social media space and other websites. As of 2010, Google (according to themselves in press releases) strives to index more social media content to provide more relevant search results as social media is mostly regarded as commercially unbiased and therefore more reliable Blogs Blogs are mostly personal repositories for thoughts and opinions that have huge value for search engines as that kind of content is highly human created and therefore more relevant for its natural topic keywords. Swedish clothing manufacturers as HM have the past couple of years acknowledged this fact and offers fashion blogs easier access in in-link material from the own catalogue so that the bloggers can easier create content mentioning their brand amongst their readers. Also this kind of fashion blogs is considered to be individual-to-individuals communication, e-businesses can use the blogging platform to communicate with its customers (individuals and other businesses) in a more personal yet professional way vitalizing the press releases that communicate more directly to its concerned audience. Blogs also create a nice foundation for high-value external linking as it nicely fits in the heuristic way to analyse linked content; page with good anchor text links to link text relevant content, and search engines find that the content linked to is relevant to its inbound link provides higher relevancy and ranks better Social Media Presence Recommendations sprung in personal communication between people online have a higher trust factor than commercial forms of advertising according to survey done by The Nielsen Company in The survey covered Internet consumers from 50 different countries around the globe. In comparison with text ads sent to mobile phones consumer opinion posted online yields 70% trust factor, rather than 24% for mobile advertising. Still, recommendations from known individuals that share a personal connection bring in 90% in trust assurance. For that reason, social media presence which focuses on personal communication amongst individuals online presents an interesting platform for consumer contact. 17

30 2.5 Business Concept Search Engine Marketing (SEM) focuses on presenting sales-driven keyword optimized content to presumable and present customers in efforts to convert online business offers to actual sales. Using a holistic approach on assessing commercial websites online visibility, the auditor begins with backstepping to the entrepreneurial reason of why the e-business was set online for an open market. Established and newly founded business will at some point construct one or more sets of business documents clearly defining what their e-business is all about. This thesis focuses on the deriving essential business information needed for a solid SEO audit from the definition set by the master thesis work called PAH Modellen - en analysmodell för ett affärskoncepts potentiella etablering. In that thesis, a business concept model was formed to assist entrepreneurs in constructively defining their own intentions and their business conjecture. The PAH model consists of five important areas for the SEO auditor; business idea, market, product, business organization and the intention behind the business venture. In combination with the essentials of SEM, documentation regarding the online ventures business concept lays out a platform for wider keyword development, permutations and content copy-creation for the web store. If not already defined, the outline to a developed business concept consists of: Elevator pitch the sales pitch that compresses the whole business idea to just one sentence. Business idea where the customer need, solution (product or service) and initial market is presented Business Model how to perform the business, i.e. e-business Market where the markets are in depth analyzed and quantified with target audience defined and strategy. Organization the executive work crew and other interested party defined (performed competence inventory). Product/service the commodity that the business is trying to sell within the defined markets. Intention purpose of online business Idea Pitch Business Idea Business Model Products List of products Business Concept Presentation Market Customers Competitors Strategy Organization Executive staff Intention Clearified Figure 2Business Concept according to the PAH Model 18